Common sanitary wares include bathtub, basin, toilet, urinal and bidet which are made of ceramics. However, ceramics is made by burning in kiln which is not good for the environment and requires a lot of rare earth mineral resource which is rather scarce. Therefore, the mineral resource will be definitely under stress if the situation continues this way.
Recently, some people make sanitary wares with man-made agate or acrylic; see China Invention and Patent ‘Acrylic Toilet Made by Pouring Process’ with patent No. ZL200410040962.6 (No. of Approval: CN126923C). This patent relates to toilets produced with components made by pouring mixture of resin and agate powder into the empty shell of the interlayer. Although the product made this way has the general characteristics of ceramics products, the process is complicated with rather high cost, restricted thickness and low self-cleaning capacity. On the above basis, another toilet with composite structure of acrylic and glass fiber reinforced plastic is made known to the public; see China Utility Model Patent ‘Toilet with Composite Structure of Acrylic and Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic’ with patent No. ZL200620034821.8 (No. of Approval: CN2926350Y).
Also see China Invention and Patent Application Publication ‘Artificial Marble Products and the Preparation Method’ with Application No. 96106392.0 (Publication No.: CN1167741A). This application relates to products made by pouring process with marble dust, unsaturated polyester resin, aluminum hydroxide and scale stone as main raw materials, where both the product performance and the preparation process have been improved.